31 December 2014

It was
difficult for me to narrow this list down as I saw so many great animated
shorts this year. Thanks to computer
technology democratising animation production and the rise in animation courses
at Japanese post-secondary institutions, there has been an explosion of new
talent making waves in Japan.

Two trends
in Japan that are apparent in my list are the growing numbers of women
directing animation and overseas students coming to Japan to study and work. Women have long played an important role in
animation as inbetweeners, writers, and film producers, but it is only in
recent years that women have started to outnumber men in animation schools. Geidai (Tokyo University of the Arts) reports
women outnumbering men in the two cohorts currently underway in their graduate
programme. The minimal aesthetic of Yoriko Mizushiri has been a festival
favourite in recent years and her latest film Snow Hut has been just as well received as Futon (2012, read review). Mari
Miyazawa, ofe-obento has brought her kawaii food
aesthetic to stop motion animation in her delightful films Decorations and Twins in the
Bakery.

Japanese
animation schools have also been attracting students from overseas, particularly
from China and South Korea. These young
people grew up with Japanese animation on television and at the movies and see
Japan as the ideal place to develop their skills as artists. Names to watch include Yangtong Zhu, Yewon Kim,
and Hakhyun Kim.

There was a
fair bit of brouhaha this year surrounding the fact that for the first time in
its 30-year history, no films by Japanese animators featured in the official
selection of the Hiroshima International Animation Festival. This state of affairs says more about the
tastes of the selection committee – who had to whittle 2,214 films from 74
countries down to just 59 – than it does about the state of indie animation in
Japan, which continues to thrive thanks in part to the efforts of animation
schools who are attracting young animators from both inside and outside of
Japan.

Japanese
animation and animators received nods from most international festivals this
year, with Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語, 2013) being a critical favourite. Among its many accolades, the film screened
as part of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, opened the Annecy festival, and
screened at TIFF as part of its Masters’ Programme. The big Studio Ghibli film of the year was of
course When Marnie Was There (思い出のマーニー, 2014) directed by Hiromasa Yonebayshi. The
film opened in third place at the box office and has been warmly received by
critics. Studio Ghibli fans have
something to look forward to as the film slowly makes its way around the
globe. The lucky French get the film
next with a cinema release slated for the 14th of January.

Makoto Shinkai’s TheGarden of Words (言の葉の庭, 2013), continued to do well at festivals for a
second year by winning the AniMovie award for best feature at Stuttgart. Mizuho
Nishikubo and Production I.G. racked
up many prizes for Giovanni’s Island
(ジョバンニの島, 2014) including the Jury Distinction award at
Annecy, the Satoshi Kon Award at Fantasia, and an Excellence Award at the Japan
Media Arts Festival.

In terms of
franchises, the 22nd Crayon Shin-chan movie Crayon Shin-chan: Serious Battle! Robot Dad Strikes Back (クレヨンしんちゃんガチンコ!逆襲のロボとーちゃん,
2014), directed by Kazuki Nagashima
was both a critical and financial success, winning an Excellence Award at the
Japan Media Arts Festival. The Doraemon
franchise traded 2D for 3D in the computer animated feature Stand by Me Doraemon (STAND BY ME ドラえもん, 2014), directed by Takashi Yamazaki (of Always:
Sunset on Third Street fame) and Ryūichi
Yagi. Pony Canyon will be releasing
a deluxe edition Blu-ray of the film in February 2015. The Naruto franchise celebrated its 15th
anniversary with their tenth feature film The
Last: Naruto the Movie (ザ・ラストナルト・ザ・ムービー, 2014) earlier this month and performed well at
the box office.

The most
popular forum for animation in Japan continues to be TV, and there were a
number of innovative series this year. I
have long been a fan of Masaaki Yuasa,
and his adaptation of Taiyō Matsumoto’s manga PING PONG (2014) for Tatsunoko
Production did not disappoint with its bold colours and innovative use of
split screens and interesting framing. Trigger’s Kill la Kill (キルラキル, 2013 - present) has been very
popular with anime fans this year with its compelling mix of comedy and action
sequences. Director Hiroyuki Imaishi is known for his frantic animation pace and the
choreography of his fight sequences cannot be beat. Other series that have caught my attention
this year are Shinichirō Watanabe’s suspenseful
series Terror in Resonance (残響のテロル, 2014), and Masaki
Tachibana’s super-sweet adaptation of the manga Barakamon (ばらかもん, 2014)

I was
delighted to have Yamamura as my
guest at Nippon Connection this
year. His presentation of the Geidai
(Tokyo University of Arts) student film screening was sold out once again and
we had a strong turnout for his retrospective.
The animation programme was very strong with Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s Patema
Inverted (2013), Shinichiro Watanabe
and Shingo Natsume’s innovated
series Space Dandy (2014), and the Short Peace (2013) omnibus by Katsuhiro Otomo, Shuhei Morita, Hiroaki Ando
and Hajime Katoki rounding things
off.

My trip to
Japan for a Satoyama
Forum in Fukui Prefecture coincided nicely with the Hiroshima International
Animation Festival this year so I was able to catch up with many Japanese /
Japan-based independent animators of all generations. I came home with a big pile of sample DVDs
that I have only just barely begun to work my way through. Some of the highlights were meeting legendary
puppet animator Fumiko Magari, who
worked on the films of both Tadanari Okamoto and Kihachirō Kawamoto; meeting
Osamu Tezuka’s son Macoto Tezka at
the premiere of Legend of the Forest,
Part 2. Other faces at the festival
included Masatoki Minami, who gave
me a copy of his documentary
on Wagorō Arai, Taku Furukawa, Yōji Kuri, Takashi Namiki and the Anido
gang, Tamaki Okamoto and many of the filmmakers she represents,
Geidai animators and staff, Tatsutoshi
Nomura and Tamabi animators, Makiko
Sukikara + Kōhei Matsumura (While
the Crow Weeps) and, of course, the great leader of the whole affair Sayoko Kinoshita and her tireless volunteers. Needless to say, I came back with an armful
of sample DVDs that I am slowly working my way through for 2015. See: Japan
Animation Today to learn more about the Japanese selection at Hiroshima
2014.

I also had a
chance to go to Wissembourg, France to hear Ilan Nguyen give talks on Japanese
Auteur Animation at RICA. At
Wissembourg I had a chance to interview Czech animator Jiří Barta about his Japanese co-production Yuki Onna (2014) – an adaptation of one of Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan
tales. Interview and review to be
published early in the New Year. I am
also hoping to write up my notes taken during Michèle Lemieux’s presentation on the pinscreen and Phil Comeau’s
documentary Frédérick Back: Grandeur
nature, which features interviews with Isao Takahata and Takashi Namiki.

I concluded
my year in animation at the Deutsches Filmmuseum Frankfurt
for the opening of Oscar-prize winner Thomas
Stellmach and artist Maja Oschmann’s
exhibition the Making of
Virtuos Virtuell. I had seen Virtuos Virutell at Hiroshima and was
impressed by its pairing of animation and the music of Louis Spohr. There is a hint of Japanese aesthetic with
their use of a sumi-e brush for some
of the technique. The exhibition will continue
until February 22, 2015.

21 December 2014

It is rare
to hear a positive stories about prisoner-of-war camps, but the story of Bandō
prisoner-of-war camp (板東俘虜収容所) on the island of Shikoku is just that. In November 1914, when the siege of city of
Tsingtao (China) came to an end, German soldiers were rounded up and sent to
prisoner-of-war camps in Japan. The most
renowned of these is the camp at Bandō, in what today is the city of Naruto in
Tokushima Prefecture, where nearly a thousand prisoners were imprisoned until
1920.

The
Hamburg-based filmmaker and author Brigitte
Krause took on the story of the camp in her latest documentary Enemies | Brothers: German POWs in Japan
(2013). Krause has an extensive
knowledge of Japan, having spent time at Nihon
University College of Art in 1985 on a DAAD scholarship for film studies
and having shot several live action films and documentaries in Japan over the
years (see: AGDOK Filmography).

The film
opens with the children of Bandō Kindergarten singing a nursery song adaptation
of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
This is significant because the first time Beethoven’s 9th
was ever performed in Japan was by prisoners in the Bandō camp. The song has gone on to have great
significance in Japan with it being performed throughout Japan during New
Year’s celebrations.

This is just
one of countless lasting effects of this historic contact between Germans and
the Japanese. Krause explores the
personal stories of several of the detainees and their families using
historical documents and photographs. The
detainees’ stories are supplemented by historical information gleaned from
experts, both amateur and professional.

One of the
more fascinating characters is Hans-Joachim
Schmidt from Kutzhof in Saarland. Schmidt’s
discovery of photographs and letters of POWs in the attic of his new home, led
to him start an online archive of historical and biographical information
related to the detainees (See: http://www.tsingtau.info/).

Renate Bergner, who was guest of honour
at the film screening I attended in Frankfurt, told of her father’s experiences
in the POW camp. He left with such a
positive impression that he ended up living in Japan for two decades after the
war.

A whole film
could be made about the life of Kazue
Shinoda, a Japanese woman who was adopted as a child and did not discover
that her grandfather was German until she was an adult. Krause follows her journey of discovery from
meeting her German-Japanese mother at the age of 24, to Shinoda tracking down
and visiting her astonished German cousins (her grandfather had told no one
back home about his Japanese family) in Saarland with the assistance of Schmidt.

The only
suffering endured by the POWs in Bandō seemed to be homesickness and
boredom. In order to combat the latter
of these two ills, detainees turned the camp into a mini-village with its own
garden, bakery, theatre group, and newspaper, among other things. They also seem to have had much contact with
the local residents, with events such as holding an exhibition of German wares
for the curious townspeople. One of the
long-lasting traditions introduced by the Germans was the art of baking. Fourth
generation baker Tsunemitsu Oka of
the German Bakery in Naruto not only had the art of German baking passed down
to him, but also went to Lüneberg, Naruto’s partner city (see: Deutsch-Japanische Gesellschaft zu Lüneburg
e.V.), to study under the direction of a baker there.

The credit
for the POWs relatively comfortable experience in captivity is given by many to
Col. Toyohisa Matsue, who was in
charge of the camp. His compassion
towards the soldiers was rooted in his samurai family’s own experience of being
exiled to rural Aomori during the Meiji Period.
In Krause’s film two of his granddaughters relate their experiences of
him as a stern, mustachioed head of the family.
We were lucky at the screening that Col. Matsue’s great-grandson
coincidentally works for a Japanese bank in Frankfurt and was able to join us
to answer questions about his famous forefather.

The film
edited in the typical fashion of a German television documentary, with
voice-over narration and Japanese interviewees overdubbed with German. On the whole, Enemies | Brothers is an educational film accessible to all ages.
Copies of Feinde | Brüder
on DVD and Blu-ray can be purchased via the film’s official website. The website claims that it is available with
English, French, and Japanese subtitles.
Make sure that you request the subtitles you want, because the DVD that
I have disappointingly has no such options.

The screening
of Enemies | Brothers that I attended
at Sallbau Dornbusch on November 13, 2014 was co-sponsored by Nippon Connection and DJG Frankfurt.

During our visit to the Kōnotori “Call Back the Storks” Farming
(コウノトリ呼び戻す農法) community (learn
more), we were given very healthy bento boxes for lunch featuring stork-friendly,
locally grown rice and other produce.
One of the onigiri (rice balls)
was with umeboshi (pickled plums).
This region is famous for the Fukui Plum (福井梅 / Fukui-ume). Another rice ball was mixed with fish, while
the third was covered in fuzzy furikake-tororo
which is made from thinly shaved tororo-kombu
(edible kelp). The onigiri were complemented by a selection of pickles and fresh
vegetables.

Readers living in Japan can support the efforts of Echizen
farmers to “Call Back the Storks” by ordering their stork-friendly rice via
their online
shop or Rakuten.

In the
Shirayama district of the city of Echizen,
efforts have been made to restore Satoyama
landscapes in order to foster the return of the wild Oriental White Stork (コウノトリ/ kōnotori) to the region. Oriental White Storks have been extinct in
Japan and Korea for more than forty years.
By means of a captive breeding program using birds donated by Russia,
conservationists have been trying to revive the species. In 2007, the first chick was born in Japan
since 1964 (see: BBC).

In Echizen,
they tell of an individual stork named Kō-chan
(コウちゃん) who
came to the area in 1970. Kō-chan’s bill
was damaged and he could not eat properly, so the locals began to feed
him. Despite these efforts, the bird
weakened further and they captured him the following year. He was sent to a facility in Hyōgo Prefecture
where they had a breeding facility. Kō-chan
recovered in captivity and bred successfully, living out his days in the
facility for 34 years.

The story of Kō-chan inspired local people in Shirayama to restore their Satoyama landscape
so that storks and humans could live together in harmony. In 2010, for the first time in 40 years, an
Oriental White Stork came to the area and stayed for 107 days. They named him E-chan (えっちゃん). This led to
the founding of a joint research effort in 2011 by Hyōgo and Fukui Prefectures
to reintroduce Oriental White Storks.

As part of the
efforts to introduce sustainable farming methods, local farmers build fish ladders (魚道 /
gyodō), also sometimes called fish steps, that allow fish and other aquatic
creatures to move between the irrigation channels and the paddy fields. It is in the paddy fields that many of these
aquatic creatures reproduce. Such
creatures are an attractive source of food for the storks. Although this farming method produces a lower
yield than industrial farming methods, the farmers believe that the produce is
safer (安心・安全 / Anshin・Anzen / peace of mind ・safe) and tastier to eat.
This is part of a vigorous international debate on the benefits of amount of food produced versus the quality of food produced. (See: Cornell University’s page on the System of Rice Intensification(EN), Weltagrarbericht
(DE), Japan Association
of the System of Rice Intensification (Tōdai), IRRI).

Learn more
details about the “Call Back the Storks” farming methods on their website – all in Japanese but
with many photographs.

Learn more about
the restoration of rice paddy habitats to reintroduce the Oriental White Stork
in Toyooka City here
(EN) and here (JP).

The town of
Wakasa in Fukui Prefecture is famous for its production of plums. In fact,
plums are particularly mentioned by the town in their case study for the Satoyama
Initiative. The local variety of
plum, known as the Fukui Plum (福井梅 / Fukui-ume), is characterised by its thick flesh and small pit. The most common way to consume the plums is
by pickling them to make umeboshi which
is then served with rice. To make umeboshi, the plums are salted, then
dried in the sun before putting them into brine.

In the gift
shop of Hotel Suigekka, I discovered that a clever entrepreneur had developed
ice cream using the plums. The mild
tasting ice cream is served inside a wafer (もなか/ monaka). This is an adaptation of the traditional
Japanese treat monaka (最中)
which is a wafer filled with sweet adzuki bean, black sesame seed, or chestnut
jam.

It is well
worth giving this delicious ice cream a try when visiting Fukui. Within Japan, the ice cream can also be
ordered via Shokokai
(JP), Amazon
(JP/EN), or Rakuten
(JP/EN). Another unique product they
produce is lotus soft ice cream (はすソフトクリーム), as can be
seen here.

During our tour
of the Mikata-Goko
Lakes region, we stayed at Hotel Suigekka. Not only does the hotel offer a comfortable traditional
onsen (hot spring) experience and
beautiful views of Lake Suigetsu, but one can also book a breakfast cruise. A traditional Japanese breakfast is presented
in lacquer boxes (重箱 / jūbako) with side dishes of rice and miso soup.

Lake
Suigetsu is sheltered by wooded hills and its shores are relatively little
developed for a Japanese lake. The town
of Wakasa, to which this area belongs, is famous for its plums (the Fukui Plum
/ 福井梅 / Fukui-ume) and shiso (シソ), and
many orchards and gardens growing these are bordering the lake. We were delightfully surprised by an osprey taking
flight from a wooded area as our boat passed by. Unfortunately, it all happened too quickly
for any of us to get out our cameras.

As our boat passed
by a research platform, Junko Kitagawa of the Fukui Prefectural Satoyama-Satoumi Research Institute, spoke to us about her research about past environments
using sediment taken from the lake bottom.
There are different types of sediments in the winter (dark sediment) and
in the summer (light sediment). In that
way, one can examine the sediments in a similar way to tree rings. For this process to work, one needs a
sheltered location and a lake that is sinking at exactly the same rate. That makes this site very unique
globally. The data being collected is
being used as a reference for dating events in the past such as major volcanic
eruptions and shifts in climate.

Learn more
about Kitagawa’s work in the extract of her paper:

“Detecting
the exact timing of paddy field landscape formation using varved sediments”

Environmental variability and human adaptation during the Lateglacial/Holocene transition in Japan with reference to pollen analysis of the SG4 core from Lake Suigetsu" in Quarternery International (2004)

To learn more about the research of Fukui Prefectural Satoyama-Satoumi Research Institute, check out their blog (JP only).

16 December 2014

Tadahito Mochinaga’s Little Black Sambo (ちびくろさんぼのとらたいじ,
1956) is a significant film in the history of animation, because it was the
screening of this film at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1958
that brought Mochinaga to the attention of Arthur
Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass of
Videocraft International (later Rankin/Bass). This led to Rankin/Bass partnering with
Mochinaga’s MOM Productions in the making of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and other holiday classics. (See: MOM
Productions and the making of Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer)

The puppet
animation in Little Black Sambo is
superior by the standards of the 1950s; however, it is difficult to praise the
animation because of the deeply offensive nature of the original source
material. Little Black Sambo was Mochinaga’s first independent project when
he returned from China. After a couple
of years making commercials for Asahi Beer, Mochinaga founded the Puppet
Animation Studio (later MOM Productions) in 1956. This project was an adaptation of the turn-of-the-century
children’s book by Helen Bannerman, The
Story of Little Black Sambo (1899), which was very popular during the first
half of the 20th century.
Although the original story caricatured a southern Indian or Tamil
child, the book quickly became synonymous with racist pickaninny caricatures of
black people. In fact, the name “sambo”,
which originally meant a person with African heritage, by the mid-20th
century had become an offensive slur.

Today, the
book rarely appears in the English speaking world outside of studies on racism,
but Japan has had a troubled history with the story. (See: Mulatto Diaries, Asahi, Black
Tokyo) Shockingly, the Sambo stories
have been republished as recently as 2005, and merchandise featuring the racist
illustrations was being marketed in Japan as recently as 2007 (See: Japan Probe). When these allegations of racism raise their
head, people are often quick to excuse the Japanese claiming that they are
merely “ignorant” or “insensitive” (See: Chicago
Tribune article from 1988), which may have been true in Mochinaga’s day,
but it is an excuse that has worn thin in the 21st century.

Mochinaga’s Little Black Sambo is presents a
fascinating picture of the ignorant views of black people that Helen
Bannerman’s book and others like it exported to Japan. Sambo and his parents are depicted as being
African. As I mentioned in my review of
the sequel Little
Black Sambo and the Twins (ちびくろのさんぼとふたごのおとうと, 1957), the puppets,
which were designed by Kihachirō
Kawamoto, have lost the offensive big-lipped portrayal of Frank Dobias’s caricatures in the
original Japanese translation. In fact,
Sambo’s face looks very similar to puppets of Japanese children in Mochinaga’s other
works, but with a darker skin tone and Bambi-like eyes. Sambo’s father no longer resembles Dobias’s
pickaninny stereotype with a straw hat.
Instead, he has been given a North African / Ottoman appearance,
complete with a fez hat. The body shape
of Sambo’s mother adopts the fat “Mammy” stereotype of Dobias’s book but like
Sambo, her face has been adapted into a more kawaii Japanese aesthetic. The
racial stereotypes in the film are those of cultural ignorance, and give an
accurate picture of the unsophisticated view of Africa and black people in the
1950s not just in Japan but in Europe and North America as well.

While the
character design brings together influences from as far afield as the United
States and the Middle East, the set design confuses things even further. The film opens with Sambo’s father coming
home through the desert. Since the
characters appear “African”, one would presume that this desert is the Sahara,
but it features cacti that belong in the Americas. It seems likely that American westerns, which
were very popular in Japan from the 1930s onwards, influenced this look for the
desert. When Sambo goes for a walk, he
goes into the jungle – which of course, comes from the fact that the original
story was set in southern India, but is certainly unlikely to be found on the
edge of a desert.

The story
itself follows that of the book fairly accurately, adding a pair of friendly
monkeys who interact with Sambo. Sambo’s
mother sews him a brand new red coat and a pair of blue trousers. His father comes home from the Bazaar with an
umbrella for his son. Delighted with his
new clothes and umbrella, Sambo decides to go for a walk in the jungle. Along the way, he meets a cheerful pair of
monkeys who ask if they can play with the umbrella. Sambo says that they can if they promise not
to wreck it.

The monkeys
promise, but then immediately start playing wildly with the umbrella. Sambo fears they will damage it, but the monkey’s
play is interrupted by the sound of a roar.
A tiger appears and Sambo is terrified.
The tiger announces that he will eat Sambo, but thinking quickly, Sambo
offers him his new jacket. The tiger
accepts this bribe and leaves. The
scenario repeats itself with two other tigers, with Sambo giving away his
trousers and his umbrella. Bereft of all
his new things, Sambo cries and the monkeys try to comfort him, suggesting that
Sambo should ask his father to get new things.

Just then,
there is more growling announcing the return of the three tigers. Sambo and the monkeys hide up a tree while
the tigers confront each other. They put
down their new possessions in order to fight each other. The three tigers chase each other in a circle
around the tree until they churn themselves into butter (ghee in the original tale, because it was set in Southeast
Asia). Sambo collects his things and
runs off to tell his father what has happened.
His father collects the butter and brings it home so that Sambo’s mother
can make donuts (pancakes in the original tale). The film ends with the family eating all the
tiger-striped donuts.

When the
film is evaluated in terms of its animation alone, one can easily see why it caught
the eye of Rankin and Bass at VIFF 1958.
Anachronistic and racial elements aside, Sambo himself is very cute, and
I’m sure would delight an audience of children.
The character movements, such a challenge in frame-by-frame stop motion
animation, are beautifully done and impart a great deal of character
information. The pair of rascally monkeys have clearly been
added by Mochinaga for comic effect. We
also learn a lot more about Sambo’s friendly nature from his interaction with
the monkeys. Sambo is also depicted as having a loving,
idyllic relationship with his parents.

The film
keeps costs low by have a limited number of effectively designed sets. It creates visual interest by varying camera
distance and using Classical Hollywood editing.
The film also takes advantage of music to complement the action of the
film – and music would become the hallmark of a Rankin/Bass holiday
special. The print shown by Ilan Nguyen at RICA
Wissembourg last month was not the best transfer, and I have not heard of
the film having been digitally restored yet.
A proper DVD set of Mochinaga’s works has not yet surfaced, although
five of his works do appear on the DVD Japanese Art Animation Film Collection 7:
The Animation Group of Three and Experimental Anime (日本アートアニメーション映画選集7 アニメーション三人の会と実験アニメ, 2004), which can be found in the video
archives of university libraries such as Musabi
and Tamagawa. The entire 12 DVD collection日本アートアニメーション映画選集 全１２巻
can be ordered from Kinokuniya,
but it is unfortunately well out of the price range of the average
individual.

Cathy Munroe Hotes 2014

To read more:

The Florence
White Williams illustrated edition of Little Black Sambo can be downloaded for
free at Project
Gutenberg. This version uses
pickaninny and Mammy stereotypes.

To learn
more about Mochinaga, read Kosei Ono’s short biography: “Tadahito Mochinaga:
The Japanese